Colorless
by Novoux
Summary: Izaya takes a birthday wishes call from a blocked number on his phone.


There is no pain.

A quick-cut execution of the call on his phone and his other hand in his pocket as if searching for one of his many other phones, or just looking for a switchblade to play with while he manages searching his way through the humans he adores and holds phone conversations balanced on his tongue and breaking through the thoughts in his head. In his head there are armies and armies of people who keep moving through the streets free to wander and roam like a colorless gang full of colorful types of people from faded gray to sunset orange and he considers himself a clear color, transparent when he watches from above because black absorbs all color and white reflects all. Izaya finds himself neither whenever he is blending into a crowd and it may be the reason why he never blends in fully. He's not meant to be noticeable, but pass through others and maybe distort the concentration of focusing on the tasks he has to do today for one more year completed.

The call on the line is someone he doesn't know, a blocked number he's not sure to remember something like this if it hasn't happened before and so because it hasn't he answers the call and the blocked number, a possible client playing games trying to dodge the fact they' are not God in the flesh and have to ask for someone else to do their dirty work before they stain the history of their own lives and everyone else's in return. It's a selfish process that involves blackening the reason and paying green to please, sometimes more because as clear as Izaya can be money is not always what he wants in return. Therefore he makes the assumptions that he's going to be fine when he answers and he feels his throat hitch in the way it always does because from childhood he has never learned to speak without preparing himself mentally and it always feels like gasping for air on the wrong land with the wrong crowd of people.

Most of the conversation whizzes past his ears something he's familiar with because nothing being said is noticeable save for the certain things that sting his ears—he hears the word _pretty_ and scowls because there is no reason to mock him now for his looks and attempting to be colors by portraying them in a reflection he refuses to believe is possible. This call on the phone is a routine reminder that moves through him, eventual in running its circle to the full stop of expecting any more when there is no reason to try. His throat will catch with the greeting and wait for the person to answer first when it is the least they can do after severing all attempts at thought processing and communications to make this transaction run smoothly in a buy and deal type of monopoly.

The stranger introduces himself first in a charming type of accent, older Japanese meaning an older man and sounds like the lilting talk of a businessman. Izaya is sure that the caller is new because he doesn't have the same tone his other clients (sans Shiki-san, never one to play his games by default) use when wanting more than they have and not expecting the price that comes in return. Izaya moves around this and pretends to be politely bored, interested only in the important bits which are as odd as they are important. Strange little comments Izaya lets pass through holding onto the threads of them that remain color signatures because he doesn't see yet who he's dealing with and that is all parts bad and none are good to consider without the comfort of his apartment pretending to be a false bodyguard.

He talks and talks for an old man, Izaya knows the pattern and sighs internally not registering the soft echo of the voice catching in the background when he's not thinking clearly of why these things happen to him and perhaps it's the wrong person this old man has called but the signature sound of someone old and kind does not pertain to this man. He speaks like a businessman still teeth-sunken into the game played by the younger generations knowing all of the older tricks and can easily school his predecessors with the things he knows tucked in his sleeve and working by contracts that are not the same agreement as the vocal cues and subtleties. Izaya fancies that he has the knowledge of the informed businessman with a few side hobbies and the part of being cocky he still forgets is knowing the click of an echo in a phone conversation while his mouth twists into a confused thoughtful expression.

Boredom. This game is for boredom.

The old man sounds like ancient games of chess Izaya has beaten himself with the black pieces over the white when considering that black absorbs all and the more knowledge he has the better. Symbolism of color does not usually consider an informant's lowly life of high-profile hostility in twisting his games in whatever shapes and demands that come forth. He can't afford to be of the more sentimental type of people in his era and younger, unexposed to the harshest realities of why cheap wallpaper sticks like stick glue in the classroom of macaroni arts and crafts dangling in chandeliers while he doesn't play with the other children. In this era of age and time and ending the beginnings of meeting people Izaya learns the hardest ways that children do not care much for the ones that talk too much but don't say anything they want to hear. Even if he does, there are no lights spared from uncooked noodles or observers when replacing the dark shadows of his pawns in a game against himself.

Izaya watches the people around him the same time he watches from above the surface of the waters of Tokyo that submerge everyone else when they talk and bubbles come up to the tops of the waves they create. Sometimes he wants to know why they make the noise and it's all white noise buzzing in his ears when he tries to pay attention to the unimportant and the almost unimportant things of everyday lives and wonders at times how the colors are formed by tints and shades and bases of moving in different directions to shape how the reflection bleeds together. The informant likes to watch when he mixes colors with his own hands and in these times he feels godly with his throne and all watching over the constants and the changes but not now—now is the time where he listens to the voice chattering in his ear slower than normal because his throat still holds his words hostage.

And then he breathes, taking in the scent of metal gunpowder and sparks of flashy explosions all in the time it takes it listen for once. This man likes to talk and it's apparent, reminds Izaya of himself when he rants whether or not Namie is there but when she is not he talks to the head in the jar a reminder to keep himself above the things that are human when he discusses the meanings of why he has the analyzing thoughts in his head. At the same time they buzz and make light or dark make days into dirt or dust and raise the mountains to crash into the rivers beneath of bad decisions being swept away and a center of calm to align himself to and keep crashing into the next day's routine of playing God. The same old man who talks with a faint warble to his voice sounds fake and cheap like the same smile his sisters his parents his people have when they glance at him and don't know the inside of an intellectual destruction of a construction site.

Maybe they shouldn't have to, like the phone call spirals the same way down the drain almost uninteresting but confusing instead of a friendly wrong call yet this one is purposefully intense when the words tremble and grow like the shadows of being bored in an empty office with a head that sleeps along to his ranting. More like Shiki when the smoke of a cigarette curls and sometimes Izaya catches himself being reminded that he isn't paying attention when Shiki taps the floor with impatience for Izaya's sleepy antics of playing insomnia and too many hours of staring at a screen. It's his job to play these games he makes and Shiki is unfortunately a pawn who doesn't want to be a pawn so it's easier to play and pay and laugh at Izaya and his childishness because there are men who don't grow up and they dare to call themselves men while there are times he sees himself in Izaya. Painfully smart and equal parts isolated and lonely in a mixed drink with an olive to cancel out the fact that the white of his suit will never impress him to face the facts.

Instead they're drawn out and by hand the inked memories and the lies and truths he speaks in the thunder of his voice when Izaya pulls something again as for sure Shiki may or may not figure out why Akane is armed with a taser besides going after humanity for him. Shiki is always some form of angry when his eyebrows furrow and knit together in the contemplation of eying Izaya in front of him who dares to breathe the same cigarette smoke that reminds him of the bruise on his hip from being hit with a light pole the same day or the week before. But he's never been this clumsy to make enemies with people who declare their hatred from day one and that is how the rest of the story unfolds in the same unlikely events of an incident where there is no feeling of being emptied by the same routine of telling himself that as colorless as he can be there is nothing human to exist in a god.

Only moments of conversation to pass in his head carefully planned out like all of this is meant to be written in his schedule unlike the crude notes from Namie that she plans these things the meanings of telling him he's elevated himself mountain high and the sky is out of reach. She likes to leave the invitations in his plans that he needs to get to work and stop playing around or shut up with the things that leak from his mouth from sinister to silly and she reminds him of the human thing called _mistakes_ though she never denies it. She only denies willingly working with him and she calls it bribery and not a mistake the same way he could label that the head in his office with its purpose for being a placeholder in his thoughts to bookmark his brain in chapters. He'll pick up where he has left off only after he talks to Shiki who is undoubtedly waiting to see him and make an insult or two where Izaya is the type of kid that has the look of a devil gone twisted.

Neither of them are religious, which happens to be a good thing. Shiki fashions himself in the same way Izaya hopes to be but with a little more tact and grace as a signature of his elegant scrawl on a black business card with silver lining in the clouds he does not see overhead when it rains. And in Tokyo, it is constantly raining with no edge or trace to the clouds like there is no ending to the thoughts that storm his head with cracks and whips of lightning and the thunder that stomps after when Namie storms out because she's had enough for today and Izaya can blow over all the worlds he wants to inside his mouth resting in the words of his tongues where they expand and grow bacteria colonies because people are disgusting things. They germinate where they can touch and if they cannot they come to him because he is the closest thing to God there is in their eyes and wonder with the same scowl of awe and disbelief how he can manipulate them so easily.

The answer is simple in the fact Izaya is charming while Shiki is straightforward, a blend of maturity and Shiki's own traits of being hard and sarcasm does not apply to a man of his strength and the quietude of Izaya remarking that Shiki's impeccable taste in art is an influence. In which Izaya tastes the wood of a cane he doesn't dodge quickly enough when the day before his arm was popped in and out of the socket and the bruises stretch down his back similar to the list of sins he wraps around his fingers on the cold metal of his rings. Not even Shiki falls for them because the dull shine is reminiscent of the rings Shiki sometimes wears of the same color Izaya doesn't realize or if he does perhaps he doesn't care that he idolizes Shiki more than the Awakusu executive finds to be realistic. Shiki finds that Izaya admires him like a child waiting for their parents who come late or not at all to the same age of being a spunky brat in every grade level above being a child and having to wait for his mother to come pick him up. The insolence still exists in the fire that sets to the blood pools that are his eyes and Shiki distastefully regards the burn as something of an uncontrolled passion for doing what people hate.

The voice in his ear of an older man does not contain the same darker brown color to Shiki of matured coffee and chocolate without the sweet sickening promise of tasting artificially good. This one is dark and colored in mute tones with spikes and splashes of thinking as Izaya counts the words ringing in his head and unaware of the placement determining today's events not of his own design. But the appeal is not the same as Shiki's unintentional influence on Izaya the way an imparted design would be from parental usage to rewiring the cords of Izaya's brain to focus on today and the future while he never sits still and is always bored when left to his own devices. The threat that veils itself Izaya sees easily but not the series of stones he steps on when trying to avoid the crowd and the contamination of unruly configurations of colors that are separated from context.

When the echo grows in his ear he does not understand not because of the language he speaks of a mocking overtone followed by the fallout of urging to do the wrong things because it's edgy and dangerous to try. People follow and flock because of the promise for the things they don't do when they need rule and reason to do such. Izaya finds it an impulse, surprisingly human, to control with his bidding of betting on that each and every one of his clients knows his name for the cheap thrill of the threat Izaya intends to promise if not reaching payment. Once they're in they play and the same tone is achieved of a calm and jovial one unlike the brat of the Dollars gang who plays two coins and many sides to the people he knows to the people he notices. The threat is there of taunting him and Izaya hates the ideal, stopping in place to turn and face the things he has ignored for too long to be satisfied with playing his games only by his rules. In times he may choose to dare others to play along and take his game they will never manage to grasp onto.

Lasting words make the impression of something wrong. Not the footsteps around him clicking and making no sense attempts of communication that he needs to leave, now, with one year behind him this year coming to a full stop where he never sees the point of birthdays as celebrations but another trophy to hang up on his skin in the count of scars he obtains and wonder when the next birthday will be his last. Today doesn't have to be, going by the following steps behind him he doesn't take in his surroundings because the threat perceived is only thinly what it is meant to be taken as and what he interprets is different when diffusing the explosive that nearly sounds in the old man's voice. His name is not important in his definition and Izaya finds that a man of the name sounds atrociously familiar in the work of his business but never in the voice of being something better than a scared game of cat and mouse.

"_But you have ruined my plans, you see," _Izaya hears and the click of a knife coming from its confines may be his own that fumbles in his jacket. Something is wrong when he hears the words and the tone dips to a dour one, playful but malicious and darker than black in color when analyzing the words he's saying and the events he is talking about are coming together to be stitched with the black thread making impressions on not only his skin. It's the easiest place to mark in the case of learning lessons from childish youth and days of pretending to be God in a world full of religiously blind people and false prophets are not appreciated in the world of business. Nor the art of being above them all when regarding himself as translucent just like the smile he always wears but it fades into a frown by now, only the seconds going by counts of a different tempo to the origin of the conversation and where the blade buries itself. Behind him he hears it in the echo of his phone struggling to bounce signal and connect to the one he's talking to and there are people all around in a difficult attempt of only skill and showing off to make Izaya the main event.

Anticipation rises like excitement in Izaya's blood, waiting with the cockiness of never figuring things out until they're over and learning from the experiences that leave the scars of celebrating a happy birthday on his skin and over his mind in time they grow to match his age. Forever twenty-one, however, so the impact is all in vain for the satisfaction of marking someone else as being a victim to the predator of mental ability and physical relief from the watch of a god falling. Not God, not this one.

"_I have one favor to ask of you,__"_ the voice comes inherently clear as Izaya waits and the click of the phone conversation still going, echoing fading away when a man leans in close.

"Just for a while, would you mind taking a nap?"

In the event he is not colorless because he chose to be but because he will never be, Izaya sees the stretch of crimson bleeding on the ground when he falls, phone clattering on the gravel and a quiet gasp caught in the whites of his teeth. Around him the world is gray and the man walks away with one lapse of sound and movement in the conversation but the old man is still there, expecting the lack of color to not be a problem for introductions.

"_Oh, I forgot something. My name is Yodogiri Jinnai."_ Izaya stifles his breaths, trying to keep still as the blood ebbs and flows onto the pavement meaning a break of translucent skin a break in the mindful habit of pretending to never appear in the world around him but now he starts to notice like the others do, bold and bright and watching him absorb every drop of their attention to detail not in the same way he does when he's bored and watching above. Low on the ground makes the conversation light and flighty and tinged with the dull hint of frustration. _"I'm pleased to meet your acquaintance."_ Blood trails and splatters with red and metal of the unfired bullet stinging in his nose with the gunpowder lacing the thick invisible smoke of a war starting.

There is no color for a god.

* * *

_Another kink meme request, boredom striking once again. This was written in half an hour, so don't mind the short length._

_Thank you for reading._


End file.
